Category: Worry

To begin the week of fast, I started with the passage from Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 6 where we are reminded not to worry about what we are to eat or drink or wear… look at the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, they do not sow or reap and yet the heavenly creator cares for them. I used this passage all week and it gave me a sense of peace. Also during a trip away at a conference, I found a small pewter cross filled with lilies and I have used this as a sacramental. Holding it reminds me in a very concrete way, that God loves me, cares for me and worrying will not add a single hour to my life, it will only rob me of the peace that is mine in Christ. I leave the cross on my bedside table and before I sleep, I ask God to help me hand over my worries. I think that this may be a life long endeavor. Thank you for offering the challenge to give up a word. It has been a thoughtful, and peace giving experience for me.

Worry has been a lurking shadow for almost as long as I can remember. Surely in some ways worry has fed a sense discernment within me. However, as with most anything that assumes an oversized place in one’s life, it has without question been a constrictor, choking energy and vitality from me. It clouds not only the willingness to venture down some roads in life, but I have found it also lurks, weighing heavily on my mind and spirit and draining joy and motivation from moments, days, and even whole periods of life when it has spiraled out of control. This exercise of simply being a bit more conscious of when I use the word, often casually, has helped make me aware of how even those seemingly casual uses can inform and frame my larger way of thinking. The result is my world becomes smaller, limited, more tightly controlled in an unhealthy quest for a certainty which can in fact be a dead-zone – a state of being that is not actively engaged with life, but rather, engaged with fear. It is deceptive too, for at times, I can delude myself into believing that it is a spiritual stillness which I am seeking, when in truth, I have succumbed to fear.

Worry has been a lurking shadow for almost as long as I can remember. Surely in some ways worry has fed a sense discernment within me. However, as with most anything that assumes an oversized place in one’s life, it has without question been a constrictor, choking energy and vitality from me. It clouds not only the willingness to venture down some roads in life, but I have found it also lurks, weighing heavily on my mind and spirit and draining joy and motivation from moments, days, and even whole periods of life when it has spiraled out of control. This exercise of simply being a bit more conscious of when I use the word, often casually, has helped make me aware of how even those seemingly casual uses can inform and frame my larger way of thinking. The result is my world becomes smaller, limited, more tightly controlled in an unhealthy quest for a certainty which can in fact be a dead-zone – a state of being that is not actively engaged with life, but rather, engaged with fear. It is deceptive too, for at times, I can delude myself into believing that it is a spiritual stillness which I am seeking, when in truth, I have succumbed to fear.Jerome

Jesus advises the disciples, “Do not worry about tomorrow,” observing that God already knows what we need and will not fail to take care of us. But our faith often is not strong enough to let us give up worry so easily. No matter how determined we are to set worry aside and be thankful for the blessings God showers upon us, worry creeps back in when we’re not looking. We have to give it up over and over again. Over time, it gets easier to turn first to God and leave worry behind. God really does know what we need.